Acting on The Outrage

Sohane Benziane was murdered twice. In October 2002, the 17-year-old Muslim girl was doused with gasoline and burned alive by a local gang leader in the dingy utility room of a housing project in the Paris suburb of Vitry-sur-Seine. Her crime: refusing to obey him. When the accused killer brought police back to the project to re-enact the crime for them, he was greeted with cheers by young men from the complex — a symbolic second killing that horrified French citizens.

But the atrocity demanded a greater response than mere shock, and Fadéla Amara knew it. Amara, then...